Sanctuary

I’m still reading through the Arizona immigration Supreme Court decision, but I expect that come Thursday, all of the Supreme Court discussion discussion will be about health care. So I’d like to get to the logical conclusion of Scalia’s dissent before that happens. It seems to me that if this is true, then it cuts both ways.

In his point-by-point defense of the Arizona legislation, the avowed law-and-order conservative surmised that the Obama administration “desperately wants to avoid upsetting foreign powers.” He accused federal officials of “willful blindness or deliberate inattention” to the presence of illegal immigrants in Arizona.

“[T]o say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind,” Scalia wrote. “If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State.”

If a state has the right to, essentially do anything to keep anyone out, doesn’t another state have the right to keep anyone in? Or to make anyone a citizen? It seems to me if states can’t decide who is a citizen of the United States we can’t call them sovereign states. I guess that’s why we don’t.

So it seems to me if Scalia’s positions ever become the majority on the court, Washington should become a sanctuary state. We should let anyone become a citizen as long as they aren’t here to do us harm.

You apparently don’t understand the critique of the right-wing using ‘states’ rights’ as a universal justification for doing anything they damn well please, and the intellectual contradiction therein, particularly when using it the same day that a Montana law, that the right just happens to hate, is thrown out in favor of the supremacy of Federal Law.

I just want to say, I LOVE having the internet, particularly given that it is a product of government spending on research and infrastructure and operations that laid the groundwork for a revolution in communication, democracy and commerce.

Slightly off-topic in this post but it is based on Scalia’s dissent in the SB1070 case and court tradition.

It’s also written by one of Scalia’s former clerks:

3. If the Chief Justice were authoring an opinion upholding the individual mandate and if Scalia were dissenting from that holding, Scalia, as the senior justice in dissent, would have the prerogative to assign himself the lead dissent. I don’t see why he would pass over that option. Further, given what seem to be the relative magnitudes of the Obamacare and Arizona immigration cases, I think it highly likely that Scalia would preserve the Obamacare dissent for the one he would read from the bench. Indeed, the fact that his dissent in the Arizona case was a solo dissent (neither Thomas nor Alito joined it) makes it even less likely as a choice. Therefore, from his reading his dissent in the Arizona case, I infer (tentatively, to be sure) that Scalia is not in dissent in the Obamacare cases.

He accused federal officials of “willful blindness or deliberate inattention” to the presence of illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Perhaps Mr. Justice Scalia should look in the mirror when considering his quoted statement. That is, while pondering his decisions in Citizens United and Montana. More willful and deliberate disregard of the plain facts would be all but impossible to find. His pal Tony Kennedy needs to look in that particular mirror as well.

Then again, I’m not really certain that Justice Scalia’s reflection would actually appear in a mirror.

re 6: Regarding the recent SCOTUS decisiion concerning Montana and the Citizens United decision, Cereal states: “Er, since when are states allowed to interfere with First Amendment rights, Lib Sci? I don’t think the Tenth Amendment gives states the right to quash the First Amendment.”

Corporations are not people, no matter what the Supreme Court says. Corporations are made up of people, each having an individual right to free speech and an individual right to vote. To give the corporation the right to its own free speech (in the form of money) gives a theoretical entity a larger voice than the individuals who do or do not own stock in the corporation.

In addition, the corporation fails to ask each and every stockholder if it has their permission to use the money for a particular political purpose, so how does the corporation know what it is supposed to be saying — unless you are also willing to say that the corporation has free will and the ability to make decisions independent of people.

Clearly impossible. Cereal — You are an intellectual fraud — a modern day Sophist..

Commentary from that @ 9 post is that circumstantial evidence supports an assumption that you and your ilk will likely be jerked around even more tomorrow after 10 a.m. EST.

Yes, I enjoy putting the screws to you the same way people around here seem to enjoy painting each and every Republican as a fascist, traitor, or worse. If it so happens that I have a nice poignant piece to link that supports my spew, and if that makes it more difficult for you, so much the better.

If I’m here for no reason other than to jerk people around, wouldn’t Darryl notice it? Instead he put up a whole thread based largely upon some comments I had made earlier. I must have some useful presence, at least here and there.

Right now there’s a pretty decent and honest discussion about OR poll results in the most recent HA poll analysis. I might be totally off, or maybe I’m right that OR is a whole lot less blue than current CW holds. I wouldn’t say I’m jerking anyone around in that discussion.

Not long ago you delighted in calling me a traitor, and now you aren’t so happy when I use some snark of my own, which seems juvenile and more than a little hypocritical. Stop whining and start posting something intelligent. You’re quickly becoming not worth my time.

Re-read the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Know what else isn’t people? The ‘press’. It’s made up of people but it’s corporations. The First Amendment does not limit guarantee of freedom of speech to persons. It guarantees freedom of speech. Period.

Truth be told, I don’t like effect the Citizens United ruling much, either. That right-wing guy, Sheldon something, who said he might dump $100M into the campaign this year, in my opinion shouldn’t be allowed to do it. Doesn’t mean the ruling was incorrect, just unfortunate because of the consequences.

But I also don’t think Obama should have been allowed to outspend McCain 3 to 1 in 2008. No law against that happening, though.

Life doesn’t always seem fair. It’s not the Constitution’s fault. It can always be changed. Of course, in 2016, when all the big money’s backing Hillary, you won’t be so interested in change from the status quo.

# 4: If Republicans had been in the White House in the mid-1990’s, then control of the internet would have been sold off in a no-bid auction to the whichever large corporation offered the biggest campaign donation or promised the largest monetary rewards to those in charge. Access to the internet would be controlled tightly, with the corporation charging users monthly fees (conveniently charged to a credit card) for accessing the internet, and those hosting sites on the internet would have to pay very large fees and undergo a labourous application process, and be subject to shut out from the Internet at the whims of the corporation.

Or, at the very least, it could have remained under the control of the military and universities, as it had previously. If you didn’t have a military ID with clearance or be a member of of a selected universitie’s staff, then you didn’t have access.

So yes, the Internet as we know it was a creation of Al Gore, in that he was a moving force for making it available for public use. The fact that he wasn’t a technical inventer over the three decades previously of items which ultimately helped the internet work ignores that fact. Gore was a much of an inventor of the Internet as Teddy Roosevelt was a builder of the Panama Canal, and Herbert Hoover was a builder of what became later called Hoover Dam.

re 15: When you make an argument by using the ‘press’ as an example of a corporation with a voice, and therefore, alol corporations have a voice doesn’t hold water.

The ‘press’ could be an individual, a corporate newspaper (although, a corporate press would be a hard thing for a constitutional originalist to believe was the ‘original intent’ of the founders), an independent newspaper, or some guy on a soapbox. In addition, the ‘press’ is included in the verbiage of the 1st Amendment, corporations are not.

I have heard each and every one of the conservative justices state that they are constitutional originalists who abide, sa they say, by the original intent of the founders.

Can you show me any direct statement in the constitution or the Federalist Papers that says that corporations are eople with their own right to free speech.

No one is assigned the “lead dissent”, there is no such thing. A dissenting justice has to round up supporters to join him in a dissent, if he wants it to have more of an impact. If other justices decline, it’s because they disagree with the language and/or reasoning of the dissent, and prefer to write their own. The Chief Justice only assignes someone to write the majority opinion. Other justices may add their concurring opinions, most often concurring opinions begin by pointing out that they agree with the result, but disagree with the reasoning.

And if Scalia was involved in the majority opinion, I think that makes it less likely, not more, that he would take the time and effort to write a dissenting opinion in this case, given that there is an infinate amount of time available to each justice, and a limit to the court term.

But the main point is that if Scalia were in the dissent on the ACA decision, he likely would have used his opportunity to grandstand his dissent by reading it from the bench, rather than reading the AZ dissent.

When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

Clearly, although Gore’s phrasing might have been a bit clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he “invented” the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet.
To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the “invention” of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign.

The impact of language in a decision has been debated of the past couple of days.

Remember that what is important in a case is the “issue”, and the “holding”. The “holding” may be only a decision to uphold, reverse, or remand to a lower court for further determination, with a very short explanation of the basis for the determination. Anything beyond that is mere “dicta“. Dicta IS useful in giving attorneys, lower courts, and the public insight into how the court might handle future cases, but “dicta” is not stare decisis, and can easily be limited or disregarded entirely.

With respect to concurring decisions and dissents, the same holds true: it signals the reasoning of that justice, and in some cases can be suffiently persuasive to alter future court’s opinions. If it isn’t sufficiently persuasive, then it’s not followed in the future and becomes a mere footnote in history.

She’s only an African-American girl to you. To me she’s no different than Amy Carter or Chelsea Clinton. Politics is a contact sport – I don’t recall your side holding anything back on the Palins. Your side is the side making everything about race. Holder is going to be held in contempt because he’s obstructed legitimate inquiry by the House, and he’s testified falsely (notice I did not say lied) before that about the same matters. According to Al Sharpton, though, he’ll be held in contempt because he’s trying to keep black votes from being stolen.

Racism is what you’re left with when the alternative is defending Obama based on his record.

So, racism it will be. Have at it. It’s not a substitute for an intelligent argument, but it’s what you are left with.

@29 I was too young and or not interested politics to comment on Amy Carter or Chelsea Clinton. I seem to remember they were treated with deference. Kids were like civilians to the Mafia, they were off limits.

I know the palins were criticized strongly for the hypocrisy of their actions, like promoting abstinence only and family values but their daughter can get pregnant without any repercussions. They put their kids out there as trophies and causes and then got upset when people called them on it. When Letterman told jokes about what’s her name, the conservatives came unhinged.

However, You made fun of how Malia looked. Tell me what hypocrisy of actions did Malia’s looks do? Tell me how the politics of her parents makes it right to ridicle of a young African American girl appearance?

I find it fascinating that on facebook, I have two streams, one from liberal and one from conservatives. The liberals post comment attacking hypocrisies of the right. “You gotta give Mitt Romney Credit, He’s a job Creator – In China, Singapore, India. – Vice President Biden”
Conservatives post comments attacking the looks and ethnicity of the Left. “Supreme Court upholds key portions of Arizona Law. Cop pulls over President Obama and asks ‘Birth Certificate…Proof of Citizenship….’ ” and a knee slapper image showing Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi looking Haggard after a long day with the punchline of “And they run things?”

There is no justification for making fun of girl’s images and you know it, regardless how many movie clips you pull up or “Well, well, well, THEY did it TOO” bleatings you post.

It’s amazing to watch your mind work. I call you racist because you made fun of how an African American girl looked. In justifying your ridicule you twist your logic around and end up at “Racism is what you’re left with when the alternative is defending Obama based on his record.”

In other news, the Obama administration won a HUGE court victory yesterday.

“A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gases contribute to global warming and are a threat to public health, a major victory for the Obama administration and a setback to states and trade groups that oppose government regulations on carbon emissions.”

Roger Rabbit Commentary: This won’t be good for my coal stocks, but fuck that, saving the planet is more important than whether Roger Rabbit’s stocks go up. Besides, markets are irrational anyway; it won’t surprise me to see my coal stocks jump the day after a big court ruling against Dirty Coal.

It would be racist if my reason for doing so was her skin color. I would do it, and have done it, to children, spouses, and other collaterals of liberals regardless of skin color.
Might be juvenile, cruel, unseemly. I wouldn’t disagree.
Doesn’t make it racist.

Neither does criticizing a president who happens to be black.

Sorry.

McCain held off on a lot of valid campaign tactics because of what might be said about his intent were he to use them. It’s one reason we have a President Obama.

No one on the right is going to make that mistake again. No one on the left holds back from criticizing Clarence Thomas or Allen West. And so they should not. Those men are polarizing. Criticism is to be expected.

Obama is polarizing as well. Criticism is distorted by your side as disguised racism. Weak, but it’s what you are left with.

Fuck you, really. If McCain had been more aggressive, particularly on Wright, he could have inflicted more damage but would have been called racist in the process. Had he done so, he probably would have lost by 6.5 instead of 7. I wonder if you will be talking about anything but racism and magic underwear in the last week of October.

Serial keeps bring up the Palins as a justification for his attack on a 13-year old little girl.

No one attacked the Palins’ children. Puddles tried making the cases that they did, and failed, as usual. The Palins did throw their children into the spotlight as props, as they do with everyone and everything they touch – those grifters have no shame or scruples about who they use to get ahead.

Maher did compare Fox new viewers to developmentally-delayed Trigg, but that was an attack on Fox News and its viewers, not on the little baby with trisomy 13. Serialbub, either stupidly or duplicitously, tried to construe that into an attack on Trigg. (Once again, when dealing with right-wingers, one is confronted by the question, “Stupid or lying?”)

The right throws up the case of a single freelancer at the site Wonkette, who wrote something tasteless about Trigg, and then apologized.

More to the point, no one on this site, to my knowledge, ever attacked the minor child of a political figure, and certainly never with the snide comments that the unrepentant serialasshole has used about 13-year old Malia Obama.

But hey, attacking the defenseless is the sine qua non of modern conservatism.

Roger Rabbit Commentary: After Florida is completely depopulated of stupid humans we rabbits will move in.

One might blithely comment, “Natural selection in action,” but given the horrendous rates of childhood pregnancy in the Republican- and Christianist-dominated regions of the country, the now-dead ground-stander likely already procreated, and therefore we’re still dealing with his genetic fallout.

@44 So, your idea of a winning election strategy is to inflict more damage on the opponent? It’s just possible that McCain lost because Obama offered voters a more positive vision of the future. For further hints on election strategy, see #49 above.

Well, there’s one piece of good news. My sister, who lives in a family of red-state conservatives (Glenn Beck is a hero to some), announced that they had decided to no longer spend money on cable TV. That means no more Fox News 24/7. I’m hoping that after a suitable period of decompression, reasoning will return.

“I call you racist because you made fun of how an African American girl looked.”

He has far more than that against him. Did you all see Bob’s very strange post about how the blacks of Detroit would become violent when they are subjected to the coming disbanding of local government and subsequent white Republican rule of the city, with the National Guard and white militias (is there any other fucking kind of fucking militia in Michigan, Bob, you goddamned fucking idiot?) being called in to restore order? A delusional racist fantasy if there ever was one.

I could repost it if anyone didn’t see it. Of all his dumbfuck comments, that’s the one that reveals the mind of Bob to be a real piece of work. It is very appropriate to call Bob a racist as that is exactly what the fuck he is.

Doctor Steve, Lib Sci, and others who are apoplectic about Benton Harbor:

Let me clue you in on what should have been obvious to you. It’s not about Benton Harbor. It’s not about a town of 10,000 which was in such deep shit that something drastic was necessary and the only real fight was about the method that would be used.

It’s about Detroit.

Think about it.

It’s about a huge city that has shrunk by 60% since 1950. It’s about obligations to union retirees and non-union retirees far, far, far beyond the abilities of that city to ever meet them, given current demographic reality.

This will be an ugly, violent, sad episode in the history of our country when it happens.

Think about this: A group of mostly white guys and girls, democratically elected at the state level, will have to forcibly take over the affairs of a largely black city, because circumstances have caused that city to fail. There is no way to make that pretty. People in distress will be thrown into worse temporary distress because things that cannot go on forever, don’t. Think National Guard. Think citizen militias. Scares the shit out of me because of what it will do to the country. And I’ve never even seen Detroit. Never been close to there.
Rachel Maddow didn’t cover Benton Harbor because of Benton Harbor. It was her shot across the bow for when it’s Detroit’s turn.

It will be huge numbers of unions against Michigan’s state-level elected officials.

Not the issue, asshat.
Serialbob attacked a little 13-year-old girl, in true Republican macho-man fashion. We here in the community organized ourselves to respond to this scurrilous attack, and have hammered ‘bub’ ever since.

Scalia: No matter how much EJ complains, the man whose obituary will read “Despite his record of inconsistent opinions, Antonin Scalia was not the dumbest person on the bench during his tenure” is not going to do the honorable thing and quit to start a career over at the ReaganWing blog. And Cheney is not good enough to do us the favor of removing this hemorrhoid on a hunting trip.

Oh stop with fake caring bs…you don’t give a fuck what bob said, stop moaning like your pussy is hurting….its a non subject. You are one of most bigoted people here, so spare me your concern over some irrelevant joke about obamas kid

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